Milwaukee, WI – On Monday, November 13, Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO) held its Annual Meeting to share highlights of its 2016-17 season and to announce its Board of Directors for 2017-18.

Highlights of the year include:

The unveiling of a new mission statement–“We nurture, challenge, and inspire young minds through music, profoundly changing lives and our community for the better”–and logo in 2016-17.

Affirmation of the organization’s mission by an alumni survey.

Two out of three agree that MYSO strongly influenced who they are personally, and credited MYSO with giving them life skills such as focus, time-management, leadership, teamwork, and a commitment to excellence.

Alumni most commonly credit MYSO for its challenging curricula and high demands placed on them by staff and peers. They describe rising to challenges and reaching heights they were not previously aware they could achieve.

Alumni tend to be philanthropically inclined, with 55% donating up to $1,000 to charities.

An 11-day concert tour to Argentina and Uruguay, in the summer of 2017.

The 81-member orchestra presented three performances in Teatro El Circulo in Rosario, Argentina, the Usina del Arte in Buenos Aires, and, in a sold-out show, at the Teatro Solis, in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Since 1956, Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO) has been nurturing, challenging, and inspiring generations of students, profoundly changing lives and our community for the better. MYSO has grown from one orchestra and 30 students to become the largest after-school youth orchestra in the country, and one of the most respected. We serve 1,000 of the area’s young musicians who come from more than 200 schools, 60 communities, and as many as 14 counties throughout Southeastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois. We also provide outreach programs to an additional 5,000 youth annually through the more than 80 concerts we perform.

The importance of MYSO as a catalyst for youth development and community change has not gone unnoticed.In our 2015-16 season, MYSO received the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the country’s highest honor for after school youth arts and humanities programs, presented by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. MYSO is the only youth orchestra in the country ever to have received this recognition.

Today we offer more than 40 ensembles and supplemental training options, ranging from symphony, string orchestras, jazz and steel pan bands, to music theory, composition, and international tours, providing quality musical experiences for a wide range of skill levels.

For more information about MYSO and its many programs, please visit myso.org.

MYSO is a proud founding member of the United Performing Arts Fund.

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